Me & My Turkeys

Fun with my turkeys on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving week-end was full of fun.  Getting into the spirit of things, we made Turkey Apples after school let out for the holidays Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday we made the house smell delicious with 4 different types of pies. Thursday couldn't come soon enough! Apparently, pumpkin pie works well as a hat as well...

The best part of the holidays is always spending time together with each other. 

Some of our favorite people came to visit for Thanksgiving, Don's sister Rachel & her fun roommate Theresa.

We spent lots of time together up at Don's parents house, eating delicious food & having fun playing games together, watching football, going to movies and of course, decorating Grammy's Christmas tree.

Fall Fun

It's been a busy month.  Once we got past all 5 kids getting a stomach bug within 48 hours, it's been smooth sailing.  Here are some of the fun highlights:

Michael is hard to keep track of some days...and nights.  Between school, playing ball with his friends, going to dances and camping, he is one busy freshman.

Michael, Quinten & Ade at a Stake Dance

Trevor has been busy with school projects which have included oral reports on the Mormon Migration, West Virginia, and his favorite, the Sweet Potato Harvest.  Last spring his class planted sweet potatoes as part of a science project & were able to harvest them this month.  He brought home 9 pounds of sweet potatoes for me to cook up & bring to school for a Sweet Potato Sampler day.  The majority of the remaining hundreds of sweet potatoes were donated to the Houston Food Bank.  Definitely one of the best projects they've ever done!  

Trevor & his friend Grant enjoying the fruits of their labors.

This month Hayley won the award for number of field trips.  I was able to go to one of the trips to a local college science lab where they did a few hours of hands on science experiments, including making lip gloss.  Hayley won the Character Star of the week at school last month for being kind and cooperative.  She also made her broadcasting debut doing the morning pledge at school during the morning announcements.  It was fun to hear her over the loudspeaker.  This week Hayley got her hair cut, so a picture of the new 'do will be coming soon!

Hayley with her neon green test tube

Jake has had a great fall.  He loves school and has made lots of new friends.  A quick game of tag after school with his friends on the playground is mandatory before we can leave most days.  It's fun to see older siblings join in on the game too.  Jake was able to go to his first "school friend's birthday party" this month.  What could be better than a party at a firestation.  They got to climb all over the truck and get the tour of the station too, followed up by pizza and cake with ice cream.  It was the perfect morning with his friends.

Jake with his kindergarten buddies at the fire station.

Luke is just lovin' life. He mimics all his older siblings and friends, and thinks he is as big as they are. If they can play it, eat it, or in my case, cook it, so can he.  During the school day, he keeps busy with the 2 kids I babysit, but his favorite time of day is always when everyone comes home from school.  We just love his fun smile and easy going personality.

 Luke discovering a love of Play Doh...especially playing with the containers.

We can't recap the month without a mention of Don's birthday.  We had fun playing and partying together, and of course, eating the delicious Texas Sheet Cake with Blue Bell Ice Cream.  Good times!

Our Tree

Last night we put up our Thankful Tree, a fun tradition we started last year.  Everyday we add at least one leaf that says something we are grateful for.  We also talked about this great talk by President Monson. Here is a snippit of the talk:

"A grateful heart, then, comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives. This requires conscious effort—at least until we have truly learned and cultivated an attitude of gratitude. Often we feel grateful and intend to express our thanks but forget to do so or just don’t get around to it. Someone has said that 'feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.'”

So Let's Give Thanks!

The Gratitude Challenge

I stumbled across this - what a great idea, especially to start November & this amazing season!

http://www.gratitudechallenge.com/